


Can I Touch You?

by merae2888



Series: Better Together [15]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 16:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12302634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merae2888/pseuds/merae2888
Summary: After a second, she smiles and it looks like it hurts her. “Am I hideous now?”Bellamy shakes his head, wondering how she could mistake the tears in his eyes for anything other than relief. “No. You’re Clarke.”





	Can I Touch You?

The first time he really sees the scars on her face is when they’re all sitting round the fire. No one else notices. Of course, no one is watching her the way he is. It’s only been a day but it’s felt like a year. He keeps looking at her like she might disappear in a moment and she keeps looking at him and then looking away, always with this little shake of her head, like maybe he’s a trick of the light. 

In a rare moment of unguarded behavior, Clarke tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s dark but the firelight is enough for him to see the marred skin of her neck and cheek when she turns just right. The flames lick over her skin, and it’s all too easy to imagine the way Primfaya gripped and wrecked her. 

 

He gasps sharply and Clarke’s eyes fly to his, wide and then, when what he’s gasping at registers, heartbroken. She flips her hair forward and stands. 

 

“I’m going to bed.” 

 

Everyone else looks surprised and a little hurt but a round of half-hearted ‘goodbyes’ carry after her as she walks away. It’s been weird, being back with her, trying to forge the new relationships he made in space with the connection he still feels to Clarke. 

 

Bellamy watches her trek to the little hut where she and Madi sleep when it’s dry enough. Just before she ducks inside, she looks back at him but she’s too far away for Bellamy to read her expression.

 

Madi’s asleep by the fire, draped half over Raven’s lap. Clarke’s alone. When Bellamy looks back at the fire again, he can feel Murphy’s eyes on him. 

 

“What?”

 

“You should go.”

 

Bellamy looks at him. “Did you see them?” he whispers.

 

Murphy shrugs, then nods. “Yea. So what?”

 

“She got them because of me.”

 

Murphy rolls his eyes. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

 

“I left her.”

 

“And you’d be dead if you hadn’t.” Murphy glances across the fire at Emori, and immediately softens. “I might not have known Clarke as well as you, but I feel pretty confident in saying that she does not need or want your pity.”

 

“I don’t pity her. I’m…I’m just sorry and I don’t know what the fuck to do to make anything better.“

 

Murphy slaps him on the shoulder. “Good. Go tell her that.” 

 

“How’s that going to help?”

 

“Anything’s better than this fucking awkward tension, man.”

 

After a second, Bellamy nods. “That’s a good point.”

 

Bellamy knocks and it takes her long enough to answer that he almost walks away, leaving it for another day. 

 

“Come in,” she says softly and Bellamy pushes the fabric serving as the door aside and ducks low to clear the post above his head. It’s a shitty little shack. Clarke built it herself, before she found Madi and it’s crooked and looks like it could collapse on them at any moment but inside, surrounded by the meager things she has, Clarke looks comfortable for the first time since they found her.

 

She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, her jacket off and lying beside her, her hair pulled back in a low, short ponytail, all her ruined skin on display in her thin tank top. She meets his eyes, a challenge. There’s a lot of things he should say, a lot of things they need to talk about but life is shitty and he just wants this, them, to be better. 

 

So, he just lets his big, dumb heart take over. 

 

“Clarke.” The way he says her name is a reassurance and a question. “Can I touch you?”

 

She grimaces, sniffs, shrugs. She looks scared and Bellamy hates that. “You can, of course, I just don’t know why’d you want to-”

 

He falls to his knees in front of her and it’s her turn to gasp. They haven’t been this close in six years. He notices her fingers twisting themselves together and that’s where he starts. He touches the back of her hands. There’s some damage there, minor, little lines of white scorch marks. He follows them up to her wrist, presses his fingers into her thundering pulse. 

 

He’s gentle on her chin and he doesn’t lift her head so much as follow her movement after she takes a deep breath and decides she can meet his eyes. He drinks in her face, noticing all the things that haven’t changed and all the things that have. Her eyes are blue and intense when they find his, there’s a freckle above her lip he wants to kiss, there’s a series of scars, earned in Primfaya, curving along the side of her face and she’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

 

After a second, she smiles and it looks like it hurts her. “Am I hideous now?”

 

Bellamy shakes his head, wondering how she could mistake the tears in his eyes for anything other than relief. “No. You’re Clarke.”

 

He drags his fingers down her cheek and neck, thumbing at her scarred skin. 

 

A tear splashes down onto his thumb as she shakes her head. “I know it’s dumb, but…Madi was frightened of me at first.”

 

He scoffs and she glares at him and that at least, is familiar. He runs his hand over her hair, tugs at her tiny ponytail, brings his other hand up to rest on her shoulder. There’s a scar there he doesn’t remember and before he can overthink it and chicken out, he leans forward and kisses it. 

 

“Did you think these,” he rumbles as he lets his mouth trail up to her jaw, “would scare me away, Princess?” 

 

She huffs and it ruffles his hair. “You don’t have to do that.”

 

He sits back, drops his hands to her waist. “What?”

 

“You don’t have to make this,” she gestures at her face, “better. I’ve lived with them for six years. I can handle it. So, you can just tell me.” 

 

“You want my honest opinion?”

 

“Yes. Everyone else is being so fucking polite about it so please, tell me the truth.”

 

“Okay.” Bellamy nods, leans into her, breathes his next words into her ear. “I love them. You look badass.”

 

She swats at his chest. “Be serious.”

 

“I am.” He cups her face, makes her look at him. “You have them because you survived. You have them because you’re still alive. So…I fucking love them.”

 

She still looks like she doesn’t quite believe him so Bellamy kisses her forehead, follows the path of scars on her face, his open mouth lingering over the worst parts of her ruined skin. She digs her fingers into his arms and he can feel her trembling as she turns her face to him.

 

His mouth lands on her nose at first and she mouths wetly at his chin, laughing softly as they fumble their way to a real kiss. 

 

Clarke melts into his arms, sighs into his mouth, like now that they’re finally doing this, she can breathe again. 

 

“For the record,” Clarke murmurs after she has to pull back for air, “I’m glad you’re alive too.”

 

He presses his forehead against hers, breathing hard, the tips of their noses brush and his smile comes so easily. “I got that impression.”


End file.
